Styles You Want To Make A Comeback

Hoppy red ales available all the time. Lagunitas Mondo and Imperial Red. Cigar City Tocabago Red, Bells Roundhouse, Two Brothers Revelry, etc.

Rye Ales. Red’s Rye, Cane & Ebel, and even Ruthless Rye.

 

I'm pleased by many of the replies so far in this thread. I'd love to see a resurgence in non-cheap imports in general, which would encompass many classic styles. Many of the styles being mentioned are done better in their respective countries-of-origin than most American craft breweries ever could pull off. The typical American craft beer drinker's palate in recent years has drifted far and in strange directions from the beers that inspired the early American craft breweries, and a lot of American craft beer enthusiasts could benefit from more exposure to the flavor profiles with which most of the more veteran BeerAdvocates originally fell in love.

I don't think this one has yet been mentioned specifically: Locally lately, I'm seeing a small resurgence in classic roggenbiers (roughly hefeweizens with rye in place of or in addition to the wheat, although I know that's a simplification), and I'd be quite happy for that mini-trend to continue and spread.

Cloudwater also has made multiple beers with "ESB" or "Extra Special Bitter" in the name. Granted, Cloudwater's shtick is that it's an American-style craft brewery in England.

 

West coaster wishing for more sessions. It's basically summer and nice to drink a couple brews in a day without racking up the units, or god forbid consuming lagers haha. I've had a couple session IPA or pales that were surprisingly refreshing, more body on the tongue than expected, and hoppy as hell.

Most of the good ones are gone and the best-lists of sessions found online are all swill by comparison.

 

I am surprised to see so many people say brown ales. I didn't know that style was in decline. Here in Michigan we seem to have a decent amount of them on the shelves. Off the top of my head I can name:

Cabin Fever Brown Ale (New Holland)
Bonfire Brown (Saugatuck)
First Brown Ale (Atwater)
The Brown Note (Against the Grain)
Year Round Brown (Grand Armory)
Bellaire Brown (Short's)
Moose Drool Brown Ale (Big Sky)
Black Toad Dark Ale (Josephsbrau)
Maduro Brown Ale (Cigar City)
NewCastle Brown Ale (Heinekin)

I like the style but I'm pretty satisfied with that selection, especially in comparison to other styles which can scarcely be found at all.

 

To be fair, michigan is definitely an outlier with browns in my experience. There are lots of good browns on shelves in michigan, by contrast I think if I wanted a brown out here I might be able to find newcastle or maybe DFH india brown. Needless to say, neither of those are what people mean when they say they are wishing for a brown ale.

 

I am surprised to hear that, I didn't know Michigan was a haven for brown ales. What about Moose Drool or Maduro? Neither of those are brewed anywhere near Michigan so I sort of assumed they were available in most states. If you have a Trader Joe's near you, you should be able to find Black Toad, which is quite good in my opinion.

 

Rating was below 4, but admittedly the label art grabbed me so I bought a can. Turned out to be a standout. A hazy with that west coast piney bitterness to the likes of which not previously found. Very good and reason enough to show off a new glass.

 

Pale Ale. Not everything needs to be an IPA.

 

Dortmunder export, true to the style. not many around. I am drink a bottle of Ayinger Jahrhundert as I type this.

 

So do you want more Dortmunder Exports or just Export lagers in general.

Export lager is just a strength category. A little bigger than standard strength.

But my understanding of Dortmunders makes them unique differ due to higher concentrations of sulfate in the water enabling more equal balance between the hops and malt with fewer hops used. So they have perceptive bitterness closer to a pilsner but are actually hopped more like a Helles.

 

Not a style but a beer; I want FW to bring back Double Jack.

 

Great beer.

 

I am not sure. I want a beer that has the Ayinger Jahrundert flavor profile. easy drinking. it is kinda soft with just a bit of hops. 25 to 30 years ago I remember drinking deer of this style, now I want to revisit the style, I am not finding many in my area. Town Hall has one that is good but not super. Great lakes in bottles is around I will have to try it.

 

That one's an "export-strength" (5.5% abv) helles; I'm guessing that whomever originally listed it here miscategorized it. Most other southern German helles should give you what you're looking for, although the Augustiner Edelstoff is also within that gravity range.

 

No disrespect to any of the Southern German brewers with 6 packs in the US, but I’d love it if any of them had a pale lager that I liked as much as Jahrhundert (although they get reeaallly close).

 

Brut IPA

I kid. I kid.
But I bring it up because it already seems like it's tapered off. I'd be very surprised to see a new one that wasn't a one-off.

 

While I get what you're saying about water profiles what made Dortmunder Export beers unique originally I would say was the higher original gravity compared with pale Bohemian lager beers, and being more strongly attenuated than those. With the hopping being lower than the Bohemian lager. Three distinguishing attributes. The Export style being brewed outside of Dortmund in Germany today is clearly influenced by the Dortmunder beer, even without using the same water profile. But these days the OG has usually been dropped to around 12% (which would have been the old Bohemian lager strenght) for the most part, making the style less distinctive, and just like most lager beers these days they are strongly attenuated, making also this aspect of the style less distinctive, leaving an abv slightly above 5%. They are typically lower hopped than the brewery's Pilsner brand with IBUs in the low 20s.

There are examples from smaller breweries of course which are less streamlined where you still have a gravity closer to 13% without the abv being excessive (Ayinger's for one), but here I think of beers like Rostocker Export, Hasseröder Export, Oettinger Export etc.

Looking at DAB that one is 5% abv, 11.7% plato and 25 IBUs. Not really Export strenght (which was based on the plato strenght, not abv). IBUs are probably a few points higher than most helles beers nowadays (I remember reading a news letter from Ayinger a good while back where they touted changes to their recipe for their Hell with a lower IBU of 19), which no doubt helps accentuate the bitterness slightly. Then again it might have the historically correct water profile going for it.

This is a long winded way of saying I think it's become a bit reductive to always end the discussion about Dortmunder Exports by the use or non-use of a certain water profile, we wouldn't be this reductionist about other styles of beer. There are other aspects which can be looked at and considered.

 

I think the issue with most craft brown ales I’ve had is that they aren’t the low-ABV, sweet and malty English style, but instead a stronger version with a lot more roast and heavily hopped with modern varietals. Some taste almost like porters, while most of them seem to be the more fashionable successor to the Black IPA.

 

I was saying that the Export was a strength category, as you say 13 Plato... But when I said that I didn't realize the modern beers weren't actually being brewed to that. But still my point was that is the common descriptor of Export lagers from Germany.

Looking at the importer for Ayinger and Kronen's website the Jahrhundert is 12.75 Plato and 5.2% ABV. The Kronen Export from Dortmund is 12 Plato and 5.1% ABV.
So the Kronen does indeed have a slight more attenuation. (80% instead of 77%?).

But water profiles do have a large impact on the perception of beer. Chloride and small amounts of sodium (to much obviously tastes salty) lend to a full sweet perception. Sulfur components increase the sharp flavors increasing the perception of hop bitterness.
Just using the same ingredients and fermentation profile won't produce the exact same effect and a large part of how those ingredients are perceived is based on the water profile.

It's why in England they had Burtonizing to increase the mineral content of waters to emulate the Burton pale ales.

 

I think I forgot to mention gruits. We need more gruits. Sometimes I feel like by ignoring all the other possible herbs and just using hops we are missing like 90%of the potential flavors in beer